The tract house where the children of David and Louise Turpin lived, reportedly in chains and in squalor for years, wasn't just their home. It was also their school.

The couple and their 13 children's situation became shocking international news on Jan. 14, 2018, when a 17-year-old girl fled the family home in the small town of Perris, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, and called for help. In the past year, local legislators have tried to impose more regulations covering home schooling. They argued that more contact with mandated reporters — like teachers or social workers — could have cut short the abuse alleged by authorities and prosecutors.

But in the face of an active home-school lobby, these efforts at oversight have failed to change California's policies.

"There has to be a balance between parental rights and children’s rights," said Rachel Coleman, an alumna of home schooling and executive director of Coalition for Responsible Home Education, known as CRHE. While she believes parents have the right to choose "how their children are educated," she said children also have a right to a safe home and learning environment.

CRHE's database tracks cases of child torture in home-school settings using public records and news reports. In 2018, it listed 30 cases, some of which involved more than 10 children in a household, like the Turpin case. In 2019, the database has already listed three cases of child abuse with a total of seven child victims.

"Right now, there are children who are imprisoned in home-school situations. We keep finding these cases," Coleman said. "I can guarantee you that there will be some that are high-profile cases this year."

Experts like Coleman urge that more regulations are necessary to protect an "invisible" population of home-schooled children who are being tortured with minimal impact on other home schooling families.

While both sides of this issue might agree on what makes a healthy home-school setting— plenty of contact with people outside the home, extracurricular activities, frequent visits to the public library and plenty of books in the home — they disagree on what should be required of all home schooling parents to prevent another case like that of the Turpins.

David and Louise Turpin.(Photo: The Desert Sun file photo)

David and Louise Turpin each are charged with 12 counts of torture and false imprisonment, nine counts of child abuse and seven counts of cruelty to a dependent adult. David Turpin also faces eight perjury charges and one count of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old, and his wife also is charged with assault resulting in great bodily injury.

The Turpins remain in custody and have pleaded not guilty to all charges. They each could face about 100 years in prison if convicted.

Coleman and Kathryn Brightbill, CRHE's legislative policy analyst, authored an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times last year, days after the Turpin parents were arrested.

"The biggest thing that stood out was how unsurprising it was," Brightbill said. "The second the story broke, we knew it was a home-school case just because of how unsurprising that kind of abuse case is."

Coleman and Brightbill cited a 2014 study led by University of Wisconsin pediatrician Barbara Knox that found that home schooling, "educational neglect" and prohibition from attending school were major factors among child torture cases.

Of the 16 school-age children included in the study, eight were home-schooled. Five were never allowed to attend school.

Rachel Coleman, executive director for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education(Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Coleman)

According to Coleman and Brightbill, current California laws don't require parents to expose their children to people outside the home. Coleman, Brightbill and the 2014 study said this isolation can be a red flag for child abuse, one that cannot be addressed by state rules, which categorize home-schools as private schools.

Kathryn Brightbill, legislative policy analyst for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education(Photo: Courtesy of Kathryn Brightbill)

According to records dating to 2010, the California Department of Education classified the Turpins' home as a private school even before they moved in.

According to the Turpins' private school affidavit forms, which are required to be filed by all private schools in California, the family's home-school started as "City Day School" at their previous home in Murrieta. David Turpin is listed as the principal and site administrator overseeing an enrollment of eight students in the 2010-2011 school year.

Between 2010 and 2018, the school and the Turpin residence moved to the Perris address listed in state records as "Sandcastle Day School." Enrollment gradually dropped to five students.

The Turpin home sits empty on Muir Woods Road in Perris. It used to be occupied by 13 malnourished siblings who were removed in January. Their parents were arrested on suspicion of child abuse and torture.(Photo: Colin Atagi/The Desert Sun)

"Private schools are required to register with the state to record their students’ exemption from compulsory attendance at public schools," said Scott Roark, a spokesman for the California Department of Education. "Under California law, which has remained unchanged, the California Department of Education does not have the authority to monitor, inspect, or oversee private schools."

These private school affidavits include the names of administrators, the address of the homes and the age range of students, but those who want to prevent more cases like that of the Turpins say the state needs to distinguish between private schools and home-schools in their record keeping because they are fundamentally different.

"California private school laws really have nothing to do with individual homes," said Brightbill, also a former home-school student.

Different mechanisms in typical, non-home-school private schools, she said, help ensure the safety of students. A child encounters a variety of adults and other students who might recognize signs of abuse. Because they're businesses, Brightbill added, there's an inherent need for private schools to prioritize student safety.

These aspects of attending school outside the home are missing from a home-school environment. Brightbill and Coleman said this potentially dangerous gap in oversight of home-schools can be easily filled by enforcing routine contact with mandated reporters.

Mandated reporters are professionals such as teachers, school nurses and other medical professionals. If they notice signs of abuse or neglect, they are required to report the case to social services officials, who would inspect the situation.

Those seeking to preserve home schooling parents' rights, however, say the affidavits that must be filed are sufficient as regulatory mechanisms.

"The Turpins were charged with a lot of counts. Eight of those counts are for perjury," said Michael Smith, an attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "When they filed their affidavit, they filed that under the penalty of perjury."

In their private school affidavits, administrators agree to provide instruction in "several branches of study required to be taught in public schools of the state" while also keeping attendance records.

The Turpin parents' failure to provide an education effectively broke this contract. Having consequences for violating the affidavit, Smith said, is enough regulation.

"You can mandate anything. They would just go in hiding," he said. "So why punish other families because of a few bad apples?"

In the national spectrum, California sits somewhere in the middle in terms of how much they regulate home-schools. States like New York and Florida have stricter record-keeping and academic requirements. Others, like Texas and Oklahoma, require little to no reporting from home schooling parents. No state currently requires a child in home-school to have routine contact with mandated reporters.

Last year, two California state legislators tried to change that.

In direct response to the Turpin case, one piece of California legislation sought to require home-school settings to be inspected annually by firefighters, who are legally mandated to report signs of child abuse.

As a lawyer advocating for the rights of home schooling parents, Smith saw this as a violation of constitutional rights.

"The bill presumed that all home schooling families give up their rights against unreasonable searches and seizures," he said. "From a general perspective, any additional regulation of a home-school is not needed and is really not fair to the folks who are doing a great job."

The bill, AB 2756, was later amended to remove these inspections following protests by the California Homeschool Network. The author of the bill, Assembly member Jose Medina, who represents the district that includes Perris, told The Desert Sun in April that he revised the bill after hearing parents' privacy concerns.

The bill, which died in the Assembly in late April, would have created a home-school designation, distinguishing them from private schools.

A second bill, AB 2926 authored by Assembly member Susan Talamantes Eggman, sought to create to a statewide committee dedicated to the oversight of home schooling to set standards for teacher qualifications and conduct health and safety inspections.

Both of these bills were unsuccessful. Talamantes Eggman's office did not respond to The Desert Sun's inquiries. Medina declined to comment on home-school laws, but a spokesperson from his office said he will most likely not pursue more legislation.

Irene Pham, who home-schooled her four children over 15 years, currently serves as Riverside County's contact for the Homeschool Association of California, connecting home schooling families to each other and to resources like extracurricular activities. She said attempts at regulating home schooling were misguided.

"There should be an examination of what causes child abuse," Pham said. "Don't just create a bureaucracy. Use an evidence-based approach to find something that prevents the abuse of children."

The Turpins are set for trial in September, with intermediary hearings as early as next month. In the meantime, local home-schoolers like those in Pham's network will continue pursuing best practices.

"What prevents child abuse is good parenting, education, families knowing how to control stress," Pham said. "If we want to keep children from being hurt, then that's where we should focus our efforts. I’m not saying it’s not difficult. It’s difficult to find people who are hiding."

Joe Hong is the education reporter for The Desert Sun. Reach him at joseph.hong@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4655. Follow him on Twitter at @jjshong5.